After trying a very disappointing (oxidised) 2000 Penfolds Reserve Bin Chardonnay earlier this evening, I opened one of my most reliable older Aussie reds - the 1983 Cape Mentelle Cabernet.
For a 26-year-old red this wine holds a remarkable deep impenetrable plummy red brown core, although there's obvious age showing when tipping the glass and viewing the wine at a shallow depth. Aromatically, this stunner is a dead ringer for a top flight left banker. Rife with weedy blackcurrants, undergrowth, damp earth, minerals, iron and blood, the bouquet literally soars from the glass, totally belying its considerable age. Likewise, in the mouth, the wine displays remarkable freshness and vitality with a quite amazing residue of plummy, blackcurrant fruit, a big lick of cedary oak and a probing herbaceousness, lively acidity and stunning lacy tannins; all superbly meshed and remarkably delineated. The finish delivers the complete package - resolute, harmonious and with an uncanny, authoritative, lengthy carry, I can't help but awarding this quite exceptional Cabernet, 95 points. Drink now - 2018. Utterly brilliant!